Robert William Wood On Sale

Robert William Wood (1889–1979) is often considered to be among America’s most prolific artists because of the extraordinary number of landscapes he painted of the country’s greatest natural treasures — scenes as diverse as the California coast, the Rocky Mountains and springtime in the Texas bluebonnets. The gifted painter worked for nearly 60 years, often completing one painting a day.

Today, Robert Wood paintings are very popular for those seeking to bring luminous landscapes into their homes.

Wood was born in Kent, England, and emigrated in 1910 to the United States, where he spent his whole career. He was fond of plein air painting, which refers to the practice of painting outdoors, and when Wood moved to California from Texas in 1941, the last of the painters associated with the California Plein-Air School were still exhibiting but the popularity of the movement was dwindling. Wood’s paintings contain a great deal of detail and delicacy, but toward the end of his career in the mid-1950s, the artist began painting in a more Impressionistic style, with looser, bolder brushstrokes.

The critically acclaimed art movements that arose during Wood’s lifetime — Abstract Expressionism and Pop art among them — were far removed from the kind of traditional art that Wood practiced, and he did not seek to promote himself. But despite the artist’s lack of critical success, Wood was immensely popular and became a household name. Millions of color reproductions of his paintings, which have been praised for their depictions of natural light and enchanting use of color, have been sold over the years and can be found in homes all over the United States.

Find Robert Wood paintings on 1stDibs.

It could be argued that cave walls were the canvases for the world’s first landscape paintings, which depict and elevate natural scenery through art, but there is a richer history to consider.

The Netherlands was home to landscapes as a major theme in painting as early as the 1500s, and ink-on-silk paintings in China featured mountains and large bodies of water as far back as the third century. Greeks created vast wall paintings that depicted landscapes and grandiose garden scenes, while in the late 15th century and early 16th century, landscapes were increasingly the subject of watercolor works by the likes of Leonardo da Vinci and Fra Bartolomeo.

The popularity of religious paintings eventually declined altogether, and by the early 19th century, painters of classical landscapes took to painting out-of-doors (plein-air painting). Paintings of natural scenery were increasingly realistic but romanticized too. Into the 20th century, landscapes remained a major theme for many artists, and while the term “landscape painting” may call to mind images of lush, grassy fields and open seascapes, the genre is characterized by more variety, colors and diverse styles than you may think. Painters working in the photorealist style of landscape painting, for example, seek to create works so lifelike that you may confuse their paint for camera pixels. But if you’re shopping for art to outfit an important room, the work needs to be something with a bit of gravitas (and the right frame is important, too).

Adding a landscape painting to your home can introduce peace and serenity within the confines of your own space. (Some may think of it as an aspirational window of sorts rather than a canvas.) Abstract landscape paintings by the likes of Korean painter Seungyoon Choi or Georgia-based artist Katherine Sandoz, on the other hand, bring pops of color and movement into a room. These landscapes refuse to serve as a background. Elsewhere, Adam Straus’s technology-inspired paintings highlight how our extreme involvement with our devices has removed us from the glory of the world around us. Influenced by modern life and steeped in social commentary, Straus’s landscape paintings make us see our surroundings anew.

Whether you’re seeking works by the world’s most notable names or those authored by underground legends, find a vast collection of landscape paintings on 1stDibs.